Painting on the skin with acrylic paints: features and technology

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

You can paint a lot with paints: leather furniture, shoes, bags and wallets; do easel works on leather instead of canvas; to make a mosaic of pieces of material painted with acrylic, and so on. This article will tell you about painting techniques, about the features of working with acrylic paints for different types of leather, about spot and other types of painting.

What you need to have when working with acrylic paints

Working with acrylic is like working with watercolor and oil at the same time. Like watercolor, acrylic, until it dries, can be mixed with other paints, better than the same series. Like oil, it adheres very well to the skin and evenly covers it, penetrating into cracks. This coating is very durable.

When painting on leather for work, in addition to acrylic paints of different colors, if you have a multi-color drawing, you must have the following:

• surface that you can get dirty and immediately wipe clean with a wet cloth; it should be comfortablework;
• dry and wet rags of medium size, preferably cotton, to wipe acrylic;
• a palette where you will mix colors with each other;
• several brushes of different sizes depending on the size of the object to be painted on the skin;
• a jar of water for diluting drying paints on the palette, for rinsing brushes or soaking them after use;
• prepared stretched leather or a prepared leather object that you are going to paint;
• good light so that the eyes do not get tired.

Features of acrylic as art paint on skin

The first feature of acrylic is its quick drying. This is emphasized in any leather painting workshop when working with acrylic. This property is not very convenient, because acrylic, and especially its multi-colored mixtures, dries too quickly, not giving the worker time to look at and correct what happened. Therefore, when working with acrylic, it is necessary to think over in advance the entire process of work in stages. In this case, applying layers of paint one on top of the other, you do not have to wait long for them to dry completely. Most artists who paint on leather with acrylics recommend applying thin layers to prevent cracking, which is another nuisance when working with acrylics. If you don't like the layer and haven't dried yet, you can immediately remove it with a wet cloth.

If the object to be painted is large, the masters of painting recommend for applicationuse a foam sponge and sometimes even a foam roller.

Reinforcing the acrylic layer

Acrylic work is best fixed. For this, there are finishing and other coatings. You can check with the sellers or look in the annotations for acrylic paints, how exactly to fix the work. The design of the finish coat is also selected depending on the type of paint used. Finishes are commercially available in the form of sprays or in jars for brush application. There is another way to fix the paint on the skin - ironing with a hot iron through a thick dry cotton rag.

Different types of leather and their coloring

Types of surfaces for painting on the skin are used in a variety of ways: pork, calf, goat, horse and others. Leather dressing, its thickness, its processing also play a huge role. If there is a choice, it is better to try several options in order to understand which one suits you best. Usually, every artist eventually understands how and with what he needs to work. Therefore, when painting on the skin, you must consider:

• Smoothness. Less paint is used on smooth skin and the pattern lies flat; the coloring effect is more interesting with a rough texture, but it's more of a hassle.
• Softness. The softer it is, the thinner the paint layer must be for the strength of the coating.
• Kind of leather processing. It is imperative to check in advance whether the sample of the material will be deformed by the paint, since the quality of processing can bevery different with the same appearance.
• Thickness. The thicker the skin, the more layers of paint can be applied, but the work is more difficult.
• The color of the top coat, because it can show through the surface of the paint, especially if the material is rough.

Fine textured (smoother) and thin skin is best dyed. It is quite difficult to paint a thick one with a large texture, because it is able to shrink. The material can “lead” (the layers will shift relative to each other). As a result, the bending of the surface will break the details of the image, completely spoiling the beauty of the picture. Leather painters recommend sticking it on a solid base before painting or stretching it. In a word, before you start drawing, try to see if you like how the paint will lie on the skin.

First stage - preparation

To prepare the skin for applying paint, it is desirable to degrease and remove contamination. A master class in painting on leather with acrylic paints recommends degreasing with alcohol (sometimes other organic solvents are recommended) or a solution of potash in water (1 teaspoon of powder in a glass of water). Processing must be carried out quickly, easily and evenly wiping the material with a small amount of solvent so as not to damage the top layer of the treated. After degreasing, it is necessary to allow the skin to dry before painting.

The surface to be painted must be taut so that the acrylic lays down in an even thin layer and dries evenly.

Drawing

The pattern on the skin is well appliedwith a simple soft pencil, wiped with an eraser. If you do not have a great talent for drawing, you can use the technique of working through stencils - find ready-made ones or use any drawing you like from magazines, posters, etc. The drawing is glued onto cardboard and cut out along the contour.

If there are some more lines inside, you can cut the outline again and so on several times.

You can glue leaves of living plants on cardboard, making a contour out of them, then dry them, carefully remove the jumpers between the veins with a brush and again outline the drawing already inside the leaf.

Hot batik technique

This technique is good not only for painting fabrics, but also for leather. The essence of the technique is applying liquid paraffin to the surface of the pattern (wax is expensive, but less toxic). Then the skin is completely painted over with any acrylic paint, you can use a sponge, not a brush, this is the main tone. And the frozen paraffin is easily removed (that is, it is crumbled), leaving the pattern unpainted. This technique is now gaining popularity, as it is quite simple and convenient to use.

Dry brush technique

No less interesting is painting on leather “dry brush”. As in the case of the hot batik technique, the work is done with liquid paraffin (wax), but it involves the collection of only a small amount of liquid paraffin on a rather stiff brush so that marks from the bristles of the brush remain on the skin and an uneven edge is created. After that, you can fill the background with paints. This technique allows you to get the original line of unpainted skin that remains in place of the paraffin after waxing.delete.

Spot painting technique

Point painting on the skin (point to point) differs from other techniques in that the drawing is applied not entirely, but with the help of dots, which must be the same size and located at the same distance from each other along the line of the drawing or at filling in the surface to be painted. This is a rather painstaking work that requires accuracy and patience. To simplify the task, it is better to use tubes of paint with a special spout. It is better to start applying from above and go down so as not to smear the work. When doing dot painting, you need to carefully monitor what happens, as sometimes the drawing requires changing the distance between the dots or changing the shade of the paint for greater expressiveness.

Choice of acrylic paints

There are no problems with paints for painting leather today. The choice of acrylic paints is very large - from those that are used to paint the facades of buildings, to making miniatures on expensive materials. We study the annotation for the paint you like and buy it. It should be designed specifically for painting the skin. Prices may also vary depending on the manufacturer and the quality of the product. But any painter or artist working with paints will advise working with acrylics of the same series and one manufacturer for one painting. This condition allows you to mix multi-colored acrylic paints, achieving the desired color effect without problems and disappointments.

Types of acrylic paints fordrawing

There are pearl acrylic paints and metallic paints, that is, with a metallic sheen. Available in gold, silver, bronze shades. These differences also need to be taken into account when working. Also, acrylic paints can be matte and glossy. When mixing matte and glossy, the gloss of the mixture often disappears.

Is it possible to work with acrylic on leather substitutes?

As in painting on leather, the technology of painting substitutes is based on the same rules, it requires taking into account the characteristics of paints and the characteristics of the material being painted. It is necessary to pre-apply a sample on the surface of the leatherette. The gradual and thoughtful work with a substitute, as well as with natural leather, has not been canceled either.

The most unpleasant thing when painting on artificial leather is the fragility of the work done, the possibility of negative changes in the already painted material. But if desired, by selecting even different tensions of one material, quite good results can be achieved. Also, this method will help you gain the experience needed to work with more serious and expensive materials.

Parting words for beginners

This video will help you get started on the right skincare.

Any handmade work brings comfort and originality to the house. And a person who has done not the easiest work by hand, for example, painting with acrylic paints, not only becomes a creator, but also reveals to the audience the wonderful world of his soul by selecting a picture and colorgamma.

It is no coincidence that children are more fond of old or handmade toys, things of brothers and sisters, than the standard soullessly made factory consumer goods. The aura of warmth emanating from handmade things is felt by children much stronger than by adults. Therefore, dare, give free rein to the desire to create. Don't be discouraged if things don't work out right away. Try again and again. Let the hands together with the head help to make, if not a masterpiece, then quite an interesting and useful thing.